Attempting Sunsets

I am the first to admit that I'm not a particularly gifted photographer. I have a very nice little point and shoot I selected entirely because it is waterproof. Which could very well mean it doesn't take the world's best photographs, except my boyfriend takes beautiful photographs with it. So it must be me.

In particular, I always want to take photographs of sunsets, but am never able to capture the colors. So, I was particularly proud of these two shots, taken on a recent trip to Scottsdale, Arizona. Note, these are in fact sunrises.

I took about 20 photos, trying out virtually every setting on my camera including those specifically for sunrise/sunsets, fireworks, and candlelight. I had no idea which would work best (except that I would assume the sunrise/sunset setting would be best!) so I thought I would give it all a shot.

The way I eventually captured these two was to go inside my hotel room (I was on the balcony), point the camera at a lamp, push the button down halfway to get the light reading, and then hold the button down as I went outside and took each photo. Yes, consecutive trips. As you can imagine, by this time the sunrise had progressed. But I'm really quite pleased with how these two turned out. I won't be selling these to Getty, but it at least made me feel like I learned something.

First Trip: Part II

June 2nd 5-Day Rogue Continued...

Day 3 continued...
After lunch @ Dulog, we continued downriver.





















We stopped at Zane Grey's cabin on river right. Zane Grey is most famous for his book "Riders of the Purple Sage" which I began reading just before the trip and finished on Day 2. Grey was a prolific writer and wrote "Rogue River Feud," which unfortunately is out of print.

















We camped Day 3 at Missouri. I had previously camped there on Sky and Amy's wedding trip in May 2004. It is a really beautiful camp with rock terraces. For dinner we had enchilada pie, one of my favorite on-river meals.















Gloaming/Twilight at Missouri Camp




















The evening of Day 3 was clear and cold, and I brought out the layers to stay warm. Below is my fabulous purple outfit. The picture doesn't show the purple long underwear top and bottom I was also wearing, which made the outfit nearly unbearable to everyone else but me. I, on the other hand, gloried in my purple-ness!





















This is getting ridiculous, but please see First Trip: Part III for the final details of the June 2nd Rogue Trip.

FIRST TRIP!!! June 2nd: 5-Day Rogue River Trip Part I

Guides: Kate Wollney (Trip Leader), Aimee Guglia, Tyler Allen, Tim Haley and Me!
Guests: Boyscout Trout 787 from Orlando, Florida (14 Scouts and 7 "Scouters"--adults)
CFS @ Put-in: ~3500
Put-in: Argo Take-out: Foster Bar River Miles: ~35

The Rogue is typically a 4-Day trip for our company; when we schedule longer trips we typically have a "layover" day where we don't cover any river miles and instead take our guests for hikes up side canyons to see waterfalls, etc. However, the general consensus among the guides was that the boyscouts may become bored (and consequently mischevious) if we didn't keep them busy, so we boated all five days of this trip.

The night before the trip was very rainy but the morning of the trip was sunny and hot. We pushed off from Argo later than usual (which is typical with boyscouts actually). I captained a paddle boat.


Guides are on the far side of the table: Aimee in the maroon bikini top, Tim looking straight at the camera in the center, and Tyler next to the blue beverage cooler on the right.

We camped on the first night at Tyee. Tim led a hike to the Whiskey Creek cabin, home to a miner and his family. For dinner, we broke out the old childhood favorite and made spaghetti. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling too well and didn't partake much. In getting ready for bed, an overcast sky led us to anticipate rain and put up the crafty new Parawing tarp for midnight insurance but we all slept out, ready to make a mad dash with our bedding if necessary...

Day 2
...Fortunately for us, there was no rain!!! We arose in the morning, had fantastic french toast for breakfast and once again ventured downstream. I paddle-captained again.

We reached Horseshoe Bend at lunch time and decided to stay the night. Kate, Aimee and Ty led a hike to a mysterious "Grotto". Kate tried to sell us on the hike: she said it was about fifteen minutes of switchback stairs straight up the hillside to the main Rogue River Trail which runs the entire length of the Wild and Scenic section of the Rogue on river right... Hearing this, and due to my illness on Day 1, I decided to stay back at camp and prep for dinner with Tim.

Our meal of barbecued chicken, rosemary mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and brownies was a great success. After dinner, the sky opened up and intermittant rain drops warned us of an oncoming storm. Up again went the trusty Parawing. It was proving to be a great success! Aimee and I slept head to head down the middle of the galley kitchen. There was some doubt about whether the parawing was in fact long enough to cover us so Aimee and I each put a handy-dandy roll-a-deck table over our feet (I really wish I had taken a picture of this one: a roll-a-deck is a table with removable legs. When not in use, the legs are rolled up inside the surface of the table. The tables were set up, that is, the legs were attached and therefore the table top--about 3 x 3 feet-- were about 3 feet above our feet) that kept out the rain to perfection. In the morning, the line of demarcation between wet and dry sand followed exactly the edge of my sleeping pad; without the table, I would have been doomed to a night of soggy feet.

Day 3
Day 3 started hot and sunny and the boyscouts were lazy! After breakfast of pancakes and bacon with perhaps the best apple-boysenberry compote ever, they took several hours to pack up their gear. We got off the beach at Horseshoe Bend at 11:30 (I shouldn't mention this, as we try to stay on "River Time" but this was ridiculous!)

Ongoing relaxation was not to be, however, as Kate had endless activities planned. First stop was a side-hike up Dulog Creek to the double-waterfalls shown below. Heavy mosquitos but gorgeous, verdant, green.


Next we continued downstream to Big Windy Creek, where Kate led a canyoneering expedition to freeze the boyscouts into submission :) Canyoneering, by the way, involves equal parts climbing/scrambling/bouldering and swimming in fresh snowmelt. Fortunately, the weather remained hot. As an endnote to the expedition, all scouts and scouters plunged from the Big Windy jump rock into the Rogue, which felt dreamily warm compared to Big Windy's icy waters.


Please see First Trip: Part II for the rest of the details of this trip.